In Which I fell asleep and thought I saw the future...

Early this week I sat down and watched the final couple of episodes of FlashForward. I did this already well aware that the series had been cancelled by ABC in the states. Throughout the series though I have found the premise of the series very interesting and I really wanted to see how they left it. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself for those reading this article who may not have seen FlashForward.

FlashForward is a TV series, based upon a novel by Robert J. Sawyer, following a premise that at a given time everyone in the world passes out and sees the future (about six months on, I think - handy for a TV series). Of course, this passing out event also leads to lots of crashes, explosions, lanes falling out of the sky etc. After the event the series follows a group of FBI agents that set up a web site so that people can share information about their visions of the future or ‘FlashForwards’ as they become known. We are introduced to agents Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) and Demetri Noh (John Cho - Sulu from the new Star Trek movie), who start investigating the dark, shadowy figures that seem to be behind the blackout.

It quickly becomes apparent that Agent Noh hasn’t had a FlashForward and, as such will die at some point before FlashForward day occurs. This starts many many weeks of listening to Noh winge on and on about how he’s going to die but repeatedly failing to do things to stop it, which gets tired very quickly. By about the fourth episode the characters are starting to tire us a bit and the plot is thinning slightly - this, I think, is where the audience started to drop off. It’s a shame because after the mid-season break, around episode 11, the series really started to pick up again (at this point I don’t want to say too much ‘cause I’ll give too much away). What I will say is that when we sat down to watch the last episode, knowing the series had been cancelled, I was hoping it would wrap up nicely, but no.

To summarise then, a good premise, and a generally enjoyable series, that, I think either needed a second season, or should have been wrapped up at the end of the first series. Worth watching? I would say yes; worth watching again? Nah, probably not.